Author: markusenenkel

Markus Enenkel visited the operational centre of MSF in Barcelona (the “OCBA”) on Monday, 23 March, to prepare for the upcoming field tests in the Central African Republic. In particular the smartphone app, the related questions for all user levels (community health worker, medical team leader and field coordinator), as well as issues related to security were discussed.

While outernet will help us to distribute updates about current and future drought risk we’ll test solar panels from an Austrian start -up named sunnybag (http://www.sunnybag.at/) to charge the smart phones. Ideally, one panel charges a phone in 2 hours.

Markus Enenkel recently attended the International Symposium on Weather and Climate Extremes, Food Security and Biodiversity at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA (http://www.iscefs.org/).

In order to harmonize SATIDA with currently ongoing international activities in the domains of drought and food security management, the conference was followed by meetings with

– Vienna University of Technology, Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation
– International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Ecosystems Services and Management Group
– World Food Programme, Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping Unit
– Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of Nebraska – Kearney
– Princeton University, Terrestrial Hydrology Research Group, USA
– Harvard School of Public Health/Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
– International Food Policy Research Institute, Environment and Production Technology
– European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
– United States Department of Agriculture, Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service